Practice getting it right. Take the time to check for understanding and work for mastery before adding complexity. Remember, failure builds character better than it builds skills.

Be great at the things that matter most. Spend 80% of your time practicing the 20% of skills that are most important.

Get skills going on autopilot. Build up automated skills to master more complex situations.

You can’t do higher level work if you are wasting brain power on the basics. Drill the fundamentals to free your mind to be creative when it matters most.

Purpose is not enough. Focus practice on measurable and manageable objectives.

Tap into the power of what works. Find your strengths and use practice to make them stronger.

To develop skills, use drills. Reserve scrimmage for evaluating performance readiness and mastery.

Help people repeat a task in a concretely different way rather than simply telling them what was wrong.

The skills needed to deliver a winning performance are not always obvious. Watch, gather data, analyze, and let yourself be surprised.

New skills are best taught and practiced in isolation. Challenge yourself to define small, specific skills and to craft precise drills for each.

Give skills a name and create a shared vocabulary for practice in order to focus people’s discussion and reflection.

After initial mastery, weave together multiple skills in increasingly complex environments and situations.

Great practices depend on great planning. Create plans with data-driven objectives, detail activities down to the last minute, then rehearse and revise.

Every moment is precious. Find efficiencies and make them a routine part of practice.

Good teaching requires both showing and explaining to ensure understanding.

When modeling—whether it may be a specific technique or how to run a meeting—alert observers to what you’re trying to demonstrate so they see it happen. Help them watch strategically and with intention.

Flawless modeling in ideal settings can be easy to dismiss. Ensure that modeling occurs in conditions that are true to life and credible.

Directly modeling a skill in context is an opportunity to show how other skills can be applied.

Many people resist imitating others, thinking it’s cheating or uncreative. But sometimes this is the best way to learn. Make “copying” a good word and tell people what they should strive to copy.

Break down complex skills into narrow steps, modeling each part separately. Let people succeed and then stop before they try to do more than they can successfully execute.

Modeling the perfect result can sometimes lead to poor performance. Model the process of how to achieve as well as the achievement itself.

Video has many advantages. You can edit what gets shown, highlight important points, analyze, and review. Use it to capture real-life situations—both in the performance and in practice.

It’s one thing to accept feedback; it’s another to actually use it. Make putting feedback into practice right away the expectation.

Reflection is worthwhile, but it is best done after you’ve tried out feedback, not before.

Feedback works best when it’s given (and used) immediately. Timing of feedback (and the right time is right away) beats strength of feedback every time.

Feedback is not just a tool for repair. Identify what people do right, help them repeat it, and guide them to apply it in other settings.

Too much feedback is overwhelming. Feedback from too many sources is confusing. Discipline yourself and others to keep feedback focused and productive.

Make feedback the norm by consistently giving and receiving it from the start. Create an environment where feedback is not only accepted but welcomed.

Make sure guidance is specific, actionable, and tells people what to do. Find ways to abbreviate frequently-given solutions to make them easier and faster to apply.

To insure feedback is fully received as intended, ask recipients to summarize it, prioritize important parts, and identify their first step in implementation.

People will not take risks if they are afraid to fail. Approach error as an opportunity to learn.

Practice can be stressful and sometimes scary. Develop strategies for overcoming barriers in order to start practicing successfully.

Integrate elements of play, competition, and surprise to cultivate an environment where practice is both valued and enjoyed.

In a true culture of learning, top leadership can’t just stand back and watch. Model risk taking and openness to feedback in order to invest others in practice.

When people on teams make mutual commitments to each other, investment and follow through are more likely to occur.

Build a team that is open and ready to do the hard work of practice. Ask candidates to practice and implement your feedback.

Normalize praise that is meaningful and supports the work your team is doing. Praise actions, not traits. Differentiate acknowledgment from praise.

Closely align what you look for in performance with skills taught in practice. Create observation tools to keep a focus on the right things.

Performance is a time for cues and reminders. Introducing new skills should be reserved for practice.

Take the shared vocabulary developed during practice into the field. Finesse it to create a shorthand for communicating (but not teaching!) during performance and when debriefing.

Be the warm/strict coach. Reward hard work and communicate urgency when improvement is necessary.

Measurement drives results. Gather data during performance to improve practice.